Healthy Soil Builds Strong Communities

BUGS is launching  a “Healthy Soil Builds Strong Communities” campaign on our celebration of Earth Day on April 29 that will continue through fall 2022. This multidimensional campaign will educate BUGS students, families, schools in our building, and neighbors about the connections between what we grow, eat, and recycle and the impact of food waste on the health of our communities and climate. 

Activities will include expanding our classroom compost programs and zero-waste commitments to initiatives such as:

• Community events and multilingual Information campaigns for the schools that share our building and the broader community, to increase understanding of composting as a sustainable alternative to landfill overuse, source of essential nutrients for plant growth, and positive effects on soil structure.
• Compost campaigns to yield nutrient rich soil to support and expand our Street Tree Care Initiative. 
• Service learning field studies to urban farms and community service projects in Sunset Park.
• Harvesting and food distribution from the BUGS gardens and hydroponic systems to families with limited access to fresh vegetables and fruits.

April-June

• Plan and launch Earth Day Field Study Events - all grades engage in community service learning projects related to waste diversion and systems thinking in celebration of Earth Month
• Two “Healthy Soil Builds Strong Communities” community events
• 6th grade Field Study trip and service project at Bush Terminal Park (brownfield industrial site in Sunset Park transformed into a community park and wildlife habitat)
• Students design signage to detail the how and why of composting for students and teachers building wide (includes the other middle school and Pre-K in our shared building) 
• Re-launch student Green Team for full activation in the fall

Summer

• Host community compost and garden event with Mixteca and other community service groups
• Establish a community volunteer program to maintain and harvest the garden and manage the compost systems

Fall

• Launch a divert food waste from the school lunch program into the gardens through composting campaign run by BUGS Green Team and teacher(s). Distribute finished compost into the gardens and local street tree pits.
• Create a student developed infomercial about composting to distribute to the community via social media and QR code at the garden, and feature at community bus stop 
• Host 2 community compost events
• Field Studies trips for all grades to Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm in Sunset Park
• Student healthy food initiatives to community fridges of local social service organizations
• Prepare for Holiday Food Drive in partnership with Mixteca

Our goal with the “Healthy Soil Builds Strong Communities” campaign is to provide students with the opportunity to apply their sustainability learning to solving climate, health, and social justice issues. We also want students and families to see the connections between what we grow, eat, and recycle through initiatives that provide deeper and meaningful learning about composting and sustainable ecosystems. We are striving to increase our school’s engagement in the community, by connecting our school gardens to those community volunteers who can both contribute to it, and benefit from it as a food source. 

Through this initiative we expect to divert an estimated 400 pounds of food scraps from going into landfills and use our school compost systems to transform it into nutrient rich soil for our gardens and street trees. We anticipate our composting-reduce waste campaign to reach more than 1,000 students, teachers, and families in the educational campus we share with another middle school and pre-K program plus hundreds more residents of Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace through grassroots campaigns and community service projects. We also hope to serve as a model for other schools in our district about how to reduce waste to protect our environment, enrich our communities, and inspire even more sustainability changemakers. 

BUGS offers diverse middle school students from across Brooklyn a hands-on interdisciplinary education with a focus on real-world problem-solving and exploration of environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Our innovative approach empowers students to take community action that brings their learning to life and grows them as critical thinkers, doers, and agents of change towards a more just and sustainable future. We also believe that our students will be able to use this funding opportunity to educate and motivate the community about actionable steps they can take to protect our environment and contribute to healthier and more sustainable communities.